The present invention relates to a device for cooling a deposit-forming gas comprised of an upright container through which the gas flows, at least two heating surface units arranged within the container and formed of at least one heating surface of a closed geometry through which heating surface unit a cooling medium flows, and a plurality of beating devices coordinated with the individual heating surfaces for a mechanical cleaning of the heating surfaces.
Especially for the cooling of deposit-forming raw gases from pressure-loaded pyrolysis and gasification reactors for solid carbon-containing fuels it is required that individual heating surfaces are to be cleaned by beating devices which can be actuated during operation of the reactor. With the aid of preferably pneumatically operated beating devices the individual heating surfaces are accelerated to such an extent that the desired cleaning effect occurs (compare German Publication 31 37 576). However, the use of such cleaning systems has demonstrated that especially the constructive height of the heating surface units, i.e., their dimension in the flow direction of the gas to be cooled, cannot be increased indefinetly when a sufficient cleaning effect is to be achieved without the risk of damaging or destroying the heating surfaces. Therefore, it is known in the art to position separate from one another within the container heating surface units of a constructive height which can still be safely cleaned and to connect the heating surface units to the cooling medium circuit via separate connections that are guided through the container wall. In the disclosure and the claims of the aforementioned German publication a "closed geometry" for the heating surfaces refers to a design with which by beating on one location of the heating surface, respectively, on a limited number of locations, the entire heating surface can be accelerated such that a cleaning action is observed. This can be achieved especially by constructing the heating surfaces of the heating surface units in a tube-stay-tube or fin-tube construction, i.e., all tubes of one heating surface unit are rigidly connected to one constructive unit. It is furthermore known to assemble a heating surface unit as a package made of a plurality of nested heating surfaces of a closed geometry whereby the inner heating surface has a greater constructive height than the adjacent outer heating surface so that each heating surface can be beaten from the exterior without the need for penetrating any other heating surfaces of the heating surface unit.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a device of the aforementioned kind with which, on the one hand, the desired cleaning effect at the individual heating surface units is ensured and with which, on the other hand, it is not necessary to directly support each of the heating surface units at the container.